Beginnings
by Natsing
Summary: Spike's story after Chosen and Home Is there life after death? Warning Spoilers for Season 5


Beginnings  
  
He remembers the pain, the light coursing through him, and the smell of his flesh as it burnt to ash, the welcome feeling of the dark pulling him in, then nothing. He doesn't know how long the nothingness held him, nor when he first began to feel again, but it's all there, the pain and weight of the soul; he is, but he isn't. His body has gone, a pile of dust in a crater where Sunnydale once stood, but he exists still, consciousness floating on a breeze. He's more connected to the world than ever, but further from it than he could hope to be, he knows that his connection is with the amulet, he's doesn't know why or how, but that seems to be a continuing pattern in his existence.  
  
Is it days, weeks or months since the end (the beginning), he doesn't remember, time isn't important here; he doubts it ever was. Cohesive thoughts begin to emerge, its been a while since he's had them. Its more of a feeling than an identity, and the first thing he thinks of is her, beautiful and proclaiming her love for him. In this state he knows better than before that it isn't true, she never loved him, never will. It should hurt more, but maybe that's what being really dead does to you, makes you stronger, more accepting.  
  
He begins to piece together his purpose, its an unnerving feeling just knowing what you are, what to do next, but he does it anyway, what other options does he have? Should he float around on the wind until the end of time? Doesn't sound like much fun to him. Angel, he has to visit Angel. Poof's gone and got himself in a bit of bother with those poncy Lawyers in LA, needs some guidance. As if he'll ever be able to get through to Angel, but it's his mission for now, so off he'll go. It's hard being a ghost, disembodied, useless, a voice with no mouth or voice box to give it sound, but he muddles along giving his twopenneth whenever he can. Angel hates it he knows, but he's stuck with him for now, so there's nothing either of them can do.  
  
He has a connection beyond Angel; his ethereal state gives him knowledge far beyond that which his confining physical form ever could. He knows that Buffy is happy; travelling around Europe doing the things other twenty somethings take for granted. He knows that Cordelia is still in a coma, and that Angel cries himself to sleep over her and the loss of his son. Oh yes he remembers Connor, never met the kid, heard on the grapevine last year that two vampires had produced a child, it was taken to a hell dimension and came back grown up and full of vengeance. Didn't take much to guess it was Angel. Its weird how the mind control mojo of Wolfram and Hart doesn't work on him, he guesses there's no point changing the memories of the dead, the really dead that is. So Spike is the only one Angel can talk to about it, he supposes that's the reason Angel tolerates him as much as he does.  
  
One day he notices Cordelia moving, she's waking finally, but the mojo didn't work on her either, she remembers Connor and everything that happened. Spike has discovered he's pretty much learnt all the fang gangs' back history in the few months he's been here, not much else to take up his time, so he goes to her. She's freaked at first, who would have guessed vampires could become ghosts, but soon she feels good around him. Angel can barely look at her, and the others are so busy they seem to have forgotten all about her. But not Spike, he thinks its part of his mission to keep her safe and sane. After all wasn't her fault the big bad Jasmine took her over. In the early morning, a time he likes best since his return from beyond, they chat over breakfast. She talks about what happened, and he listens. He tells Angel what she says, and soon he thinks maybe they can rebuild their friendship. Its becomes a routine, and surprisingly he likes understanding the passage of time again, it feels almost like being alive again, except not, because as he talks to Cordy he can see Angel in his office looking out at the morning Sun wishing he could wander around among the bustle of LAs city streets; he can sense Willow from half way across the world, performing some powerful magicks. Knows that Giles has started to rebuild the council, in his own image of course, and still can feel Buffy's happiness, and is sure that he made the right decision in that basement only eight months before.  
  
Being dead has made him so connected that finally he gets it all, the mission, a higher purpose and how they all fit in, and his place is here. And so the pattern continues, Spike is Angel's moral guide, funny he never thought of Angel as needing moral guidance, but he never knew how close to the darkness Angel really was until he stepped into his world, and he's in awe that he was able to control himself for so long. He knows had he been around much longer he wouldn't have been able to do it. So they talk and fight side by side. He realised soon into his ghost hood that for limited periods he can possess human bodies. Cordy has offered hers up to him a few times, but he only uses the bodies to fight now, and he couldn't put her in danger, she's too fragile now; after Jasmine.  
  
He feels at home here, floating amongst the daunting walls of Wolfram and Hart, having breakfast with Cordy, fighting with Angel, giving him comfort when he cries for Connor, scaring Fred with ghostly boos at all hours and winding Wesley up whenever he can, they all avoid the boy Gunn, there's something odd about him, he thinks its dark Wolfram and Hart power it frightens them, but not Spike. Its hardly like he can kill him now is it? They talk sometimes when Gunn's just come back from some evil destroying mission, or he's bored and restless because he hasn't been on a mission recently, they talk of Gwen the girl who put spark in Gunn's life and of Fred, the fragile crazy whom Spike respects far more than he will admit, Gunn won't talk about Cordy, but Spike talks anyway, maybe one day they'll all be friends again.  
  
So here's a unit of people once so close who now practically never speak to each other anymore, but they all speak to him, like he can talk himself alive again, the more he talks and listens the more whole he feels, that breeze couldn't lift him away anymore and that pleases him. He finally feels like his purpose is bigger than just Angel. This is home, and it might not be Sunnydale, with Buffy; but he doesn't really miss it that much. He might not be alive, but it's as close as he's been in over a century. 


End file.
